ense of courage (Margolies Study 76). He accidentally kills Mary Dalton because he is afraid that her mother will accuse him of sexually assaulting Mary. He also shows fear by burning her body so that no one will find it (Smith 392). Bigger hates the fact that his black skin keeps him from having the opportunities and luxuries of the white world. “I could fly a plane if I had a chance, ‘Bigger said. ‘If you wasn’t black and if you had some money and if they’d let you go to aviation school, you could fly a plane,’ Gus said” [sic] (Wright Native 20). He hates to be reminded of this condition and hates those who do remind him. White people constantly remind Bigger that he cannot succeed (Discovering 5). “I feel like somebody’s poking a red-hot iron down my throat. Goddammit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we don’t. They do things and we can’t. It’s just like living in jail. Half the time I feel like I’m on the outside of the world peeping in through a knot-hole in the fence...”[sic] (Wright Native 22). Even though Mary Dalton and her communist boyfriend, Jan, try to treat Bigger as an equal, they cannot escape his hatred. Mary and Jan frighten Bigger by their strange actions. Their actions are “something he can only interpret as mockery” (Discovering 3). “Was she laughing at him? Were they making fun of him? Why couldn’t they leave him alone? He wasn’t bothering them” (Wright Native 61). Bigger’s hatred toward Mary, Jan, and other white people comes from more than the fact that he is oppressed or feels as he is being mocked. Bigger wants' people to look past his black skin and see who he really is. He wants to be given a chance. Bigger hates white people because they do not see him as an individual person with his own thoughts...
